California Considers Banning Internal Combustion Engines To Meet Emissions Goals (sacbee.com)

New submitter Rick Schumann writes about California considering a ban on internal combustion engines: The ban on internal-combustion engine automobiles would be at least 10 years away, and it's unclear at this early stage if it would ban only sales and use of new cars, or ban existing cars as well. There's also no mention of two (or three) wheeled vehicles at this stage. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is nevertheless considering this seriously, in order to meet its ambitious emissions reduction goals. According to state data, tailpipes generate more than one-third of all greenhouse gases, and so far only a small fraction of California's motorists drive electric vehicles. The announcement was made in an interview with Bloomberg news. "I've gotten messages from the governor asking, 'Why haven't we done something already?' The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California," Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the CARB, told Bloomberg.

Comments

License them

[gurps_npc]

Banning is asking for trouble from the right.

Much smarter to simply put a 100% tax on them. You want to buy an internal combustion vehicle? If you want it badly enough PAY for it.

If you aren't willing to pay the money then buy electric.

Also, you don't have to deal with some agency deciding who is truly in need of an internal combustion error. People that use powered parachutes, or four wheel drive vehicles for people that live in the middle of a national forest with no electricity for miles.

Re:License them

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap dude...We're talking California here the Utopia of 'leftist ideals' in the US...you want to see a war start, just trying banning ICE in California...Have you ever been in the Los Angeles or San Francisco area? Getting all Californian's to replace their ICE with Electric in 20 years isn't going to happen much less 10, the leftist may go along with a ban because you know...they're stupid...but when it comes time to giving their ICE car up they'll be protesting in the streets (the other thing the left is so good at...and how do they get to protests...yup, their ICE based car).

Hell, there's a very easy test of your premise...just raise the price of gasoline to $100/gallon...lets see how long that lasts. I predict it would be about as long as it takes the ink to dry on the paper.

Re:License them

[AmiMoJo]

I have a feeling that a 100% tax might anger the right as well... I'd also rather have a government agency deciding what is a reasonable requirement for a licence to pollute and damage health than simply making it a privilege of the rich.

The real goal of setting a ban date a decade or two in the future is to encourage manufacturers to switch faster. If they know that some big markets are going to lock them out unless they produce some good EVs they will make more effort to develop them.

Look at how many European manufacturers have accelerated their EV programmes now that several European countries have decided to eventually ban combustion engine sales.

What about the working poor?

[rsilvergun]

like it or not electrics are a lot more expensive up front. They tightened their emissions rules on long haul trucks without tightening labor regulations and the result was desperate truckers forced into "leases" for new trucks where they worked for pennies a week and eventually gave the truck (and all the lease payments) to the company owner.

This is all well and good only if it's followed by worker protections. My question is, is this actual progressive policy or a bunch of rich people that just want clean air for themselves? For the truckers it was the latter.

Re:What about the working poor?

[Pfhorrest]

I wish I had mod points because I was going to say exactly the same thing.

Also, with the California cost of living, the vast majority of people here are house poor, and having to buy any new vehicle at all, never mind a fancy high tech new vehicle, is a burden that would force them to choose between carlessness = joblessness = homelessness, or else not paying their rent = homelessness anyway.

Re:What about the working poor?

[Pfhorrest]

Deploying a state-wide network of self-driving electric cars would be one thing. You wouldn't even need to ban ICEs; people would just stop using them if the new system was better, which it very well could be. But just banning ICEs outright, without yet implementing a replacement for the many people who rely on 20 year old old beater cars to get to the shit jobs to pay their exorbitant rents, just ruins a bunch of people's lives.

Re:What about the working poor?

[aussie_a]

And yet the horse and buggy were never banned, they simply fell out of use because they weren't good enough. If this was about progress they would let technology drive the market. If this was about pollution they would out tariffs on vehicles and petrol so those who created the pollution would directly be responsible for paying to get it cleaned up.

But it isn't about either of those things. It's about tin pot dictators looming to China and wanting that level of control. If this goes ahead I hope the Californian people show these tyrants the door either at the voting booth or with their constitutionally protected firearms.

Re:What about the working poor?

[mvdwege]

you would have to pay for exhaust of the power plant that produces the electricity your tesla is using.

We already do. Depending on local emissions standards, electricity companies have fairly strong pollution controls on their exhaust. And of course this is reflected in the cost of electricity.

And of course I'm not even talking about what method of generation you use. Some of them are even emissionless.

In short: fuck off with your false equivalency.

Re:What about the working poor?

[thegarbz]

people would just stop using them if the new system was better

Nope, people would make ridiculous justifications as to why they aren't better. Hell we see this on a daily basis as it is.

This is America. The large car is about as sacred as the gun, the flag, and Jesus. It will take a lot more than "better" to get people to change.

Re:What about the working poor?

[AmiMoJo]

The electronics are much cheaper than a combustion engine. Aside from not needing a complex combustion system with emission controls, there is also no gearbox or exhaust etc.

The only reason they are more expensive is the battery pack. As production ramps up costs will fall. They are already falling incredibly fast. In the space of about 6 years we have doubled range for the same price, and we are only really at the start of the big increases in production capacity and demand.

Re:What about the working poor?

[blindseer]

Then offer people a large electric car.

Can China do this?

[Zobeid]

quote: "The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California."

So far the Chinese have shown that they can *talk* about banning combustion cars, not that they can actually make it work.

Re:Can China do this?

[phantomfive]

Well, let me tell you, Governor Brown will show you, that California will spare no expense, leave no stone unturned, to narrow the gap when it comes to talking about banning combustion cars!

Re:Can China do this?

[thegarbz]

So far the Chinese have shown that they can *talk* about banning combustion cars, not that they can actually make it work.

When we talk about China we always talk about the next thing China is talking about, without looking at what they have achieved in the past.

While we claim they are all talk, they are the biggest electric car market in the world and the rate of increase in the market has in the past 2 years surpassed the entire rest of the world. The USA talks about things and then generally plods slowly in that direction, spending more energy bickering about it in the government than actually instigating change. China on the other hand has a steady record of making a decision (often a questionable decision) and then plowing full steam ahead to achieve it.

Re:ha

[WoodstockJeff]

> Not everyone can walk out and afford a 40K brand new electric car.

Well, everyone that counts can. If you can't, you don't count.

How this will realistically go

[TWX]

First thing to bear in mind, banning all combustion-engine-powered cars would be an absolute nonstarter. There are a number of groups that would absolutely band-together to lobby against it, even if those groups that may not normally have a lot to do with each other (enthusiasts for horseless-carriage-era cars and modern auto manufacturers for example) would immediately find common ground to coordinate efforts.

Second, there are classes of vehicles and types of use that do not readily lend themselves to electric use. In particular vehicles designed for heavy offroad use would not make for good electrics when they go places that the electric grid doesn't service, and the mass-penalty in carrying batteries would be a problem for offroad performance. Additionally many commercial-service vehicles would make poor electrics if their daily range far exceeds what a charge can provide, as commercial vehicles might not even have opportunity to charge at their destinations.

Realistically, passenger cars that are not primarily geared toward commercial use would be the best application for electric adoption. Roads are built close to infrastructure and are themselves infrastructure, so recharging cars is practical or can be made practical. Additionally, when the entry-level electric car has a range equivalent to half a tank of gas, which is usually 100-150 miles, suddenly it becomes practical for most commuters for their daily use. Sure, some people do drive more than that in a given day, but most do not, so most people could make that kind of range work for them.

In addition to passenger cars, many 2wd commercial chassis would be designed with an electric option. While a lot of commercial vehicles would not be suitable as electrics, plenty more would be. It is not unrealistic that delivery vans could be made electric if their routes are sufficiently short, and personal-use "lifestyle" 2wd pickups could also make for good electrics when they're used similarly to passenger cars for things like commuting.

I expect that small and mid-sized sedans would be all-electric first. Small cars are usually least likely to be used for passenger livery, and mid-size sedans are extremely popular and the number of sales would make quite a dent in gasoline power. Large sedans would probably follow last since they're often used for police and passenger livery, and they may well always have a gasoline variant. Once these prove popular and successful then we might see coupes and sports cars work as popular electrics, and eventually trucks, vans, and other chassis.

Re:How this will realistically go

[phantomfive]

Yeah, if you have a commuter vehicle, there are no downsides to making it electric. It's quieter, gas mileage is better, and performance is better. Once the price is right, you won't even need to ban combustion cars, people won't want them.

Re:How this will realistically go

[Solandri]

I expect that small and mid-sized sedans would be all-electric first.

The problem is these are not the vehicles producing the emissions. The whole thing stems from MPG being the inverse of fuel consumption. People see the big MPG number from a fuel-efficient vehicle and think they're making a big difference in fuel consumption. It's actually the opposite - the bigger the MPG of a vehicle, the smaller the impact it has on overall consumption and emissions. Switching from a 25 MPG sedan to a 50 MPG Prius results in less fuel savings (and thus less emissions reduction) than someone switching from a 15 MPG full-size SUV to a 25 MPG large sedan. Yes, that 10 MPG improvement results in more fuel savings and more emissions reduction than the Prius' 25 MPG improvement.

15 MPG = 6.67 gallons to drive 100 miles
25 MPG = 4 gallons to drive 100 miles, a 2.67 gallon improvement
50 MPG = 2 gallons to drive 100 miles, only a 2 gallon improvement

Because MPG is the inverse of fuel consumption, it's 1/MPG which is the important value. And the bigger MPG values mean less incremental fuel savings. The rest of the world uses liters per 100 km to avoid this problem. For some reason it's backwards in the U.S., and marketing has abused it to make people feel good about buying a Prius when it's about the smallest difference you can make in terms of driving.

You know how environmentalists scoffed at hybrid SUVs? That was actually the best place to put a hybrid engine. The 6 MPG improvement the Highlander Hybrid gets from 22 to 28 MPG results in a fuel savings of nearly 1 gallon per 100 miles. That's about the same savings as switching from a 33 MPG econobox to a 50 MPG Prius. If you can improve a tractor trailer's 6 MPG to just 6,4 MPG, that also saves about the same amount of fuel per mile. It's the big vehicles which consume a lot of fuel whose efficiency you want to improve first in order to produce the biggest reduction in fuel consumption and emissions. The Priuses, econoboxes, and small sedans are roundoff error.

Give Musk credit. He actually understands this, which is why his next project is an electric tractor trailer.

Re:How this will realistically go

[SEE]

Plus of course you are not poisoning people with toxic exhaust fumes.

Riiiight. Because the 53% of locally-generated electrical power and the 42.88% of all consumed electrical power in California that came from burning coal, gas, oil, and biomass in 2016 was all using the secret California technique that doesn't involve emissions.

Re:How this will realistically go

[AmiMoJo]

In particular vehicles designed for heavy offroad use

EVs are ideal for off-road use. Massive amounts of torque at low speeds, but no gearbox so driving them is easier. Few things to go wrong too, so more reliable. Current range would be around 250-300 miles per charge, way more than almost anyone will do off-road, and of course that will increase with time. Plus you can charge from solar/wind in remote areas, where as if you run out of fuel you are in trouble.

Additionally many commercial-service vehicles would make poor electrics if their daily range far exceeds what a charge can provide

Commercial long distance vehicles will soon be electric and driverless. It rarely matters if they need to stop and charge every few hours if there is no driver. For most freight an extra hour or two on the journey is meaningless. In fact I expect they will not even bother with the largest available batteries and instead opt for cheaper ones with more charging stops, because that is where the maximum cost/benefit ratio is.

Re:How this will realistically go

[blindseer]

If California hadn't driven out all their nuclear power then perhaps they wouldn't have to rely on coal and natural gas so much.

Sure, using electric cars and coal fired electricity will quite likely reduce CO2 and other emissions considerably. Using electric cars and nuclear power would reduce the emissions problem even more.

I halfway agree with you here, this is a bad idea so long as their electricity comes primarily from fossil fuels. Shifting to nuclear power would solve that problem but the limitations of electric cars would remain.

LOL.

[SeaFox]

The ban on internal-combustion engine automobiles would be at least 10 years away, and it's unclear at this early stage if it would ban only sales and use of new cars, or ban existing cars as well.

What sensationalist tripe.
What are they going to do, strand millions of lower-income people who can't afford to replace their $2000 clunker with a $30,000 new car?

Re:LOL.

[thegarbz]

What are they going to do, strand millions of lower-income people who can't afford to replace their $2000 clunker with a $30,000 new car?

No, because they are clearly talking in the context of the similar policies in EU and China which are only on new cars. The article doesn't spell this out, but it does make the link.

Re:Because

[flatt]

>why China can do this and not California

Because they're a dictatorship who can proclaim broad life-changing decrees and their citizens have no way to vote them out.

China or California?

Wake up to real reality

[SuperKendall]

Los Angeles is one the leading smog capitals of the world.

Yes, and?

If people didn't like that, wouldn't they move? But LA population is rising.

Meanwhile LA roads also keep expanding. Pretty obviously as the original post stated, Californians love cars, and LA residents plainly do not care about smog. Therefore he is right and the stick up your ass serves no purpose other than to give someone a handle to easily control your responses with.

It is a merry tune you dance to, green puppet, but you are not playing for much of a crowd.

Re:Wake up to real reality

[serviscope_minor]

Meanwhile LA roads also keep expanding. Pretty obviously as the original post stated, Californians love cars, and LA residents plainly do not care about smog.

Or they do, but they care more about other things like jobs or not leaving their friends/family/support network more.

Your argument is a form of "people put up with it therefore they don't care so we shouldn't fix it". It's facile.

Re:Wake up to real reality

[edtice1559]

They may be (individually) willing to give up things to make it go away. But some things can't be accomplished through a bunch of individual decisions. If you give up your gas car, now you just don't have good transportation and there is still smog. You live in a place hostile to your situation. On the other hand, if you ban gas cars, the city changes to become toward not having a gas car and it's a pleasant place for everybody. You'll have fabulous public transportation, chargers at every parking spot, and all of those gas stations will become lush urban parks that sooth the soul while freshening the air.

Re:Wake up to real reality

[SuperKendall]

Wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to fix it. I'm saying that California residents care about it little enough they will not put up with any large inconvenience (like elimination of precious automobiles) to address it. So elimination of cars from CA is a non-starter.

Re:Wake up to real reality

[jeff4747]

I'm saying that California residents care about it little enough they will not put up with any large inconvenience

Californians have paid thousands of dollars more for their cars, because they cared enough about it to force carmakers to produce cars with the "California emissions" package.

Californians pay more for their gasoline because of the emissions and vapor capture requirements for gas stations.

Californians indeed care about this. Californians have also looked at their metropolises, figured out that public transportation, bikes and similar car alternatives can not work due to development decisions made in the 1930s. So they forced cars to be better and paid a lot of money for it.

If you think not having a car in Los Angeles is just an "inconvenience", it's abundantly obvious you have never attempted to live there.

Maybe they could start

[bobstreo]

Will all state and local government vehicles and see how it goes for them.

And the answer is....

[habig]

The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California,"

Because one of the two is is a totalitarian communist regime and the other is....

Wait, I take that back.

Re:They can't.

[ChrisMaple]

If people leave California, they're going to take their ignorant politics with them and pollute the rest of the country.

Re:If they ban existing vehicles I will sue

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect the headline is wildly sensationalist (as is tradition, I did not RTFA). It's designed to manufacture outrage.

There's no way they could outright ban existing vehicles, in California or anywhere else. Hell, even California basically lets old vehicles get away with much looser emissions standards, I guess to help out poor people who can't afford newer cars. There's no way they'd tell everyone in 10 years you can't drive the car you currently own.

Even a strict 10-year cutoff is ludicrous. I'm sure if anything were passed, it would be a very gradual phaseout, with lots and lots of exceptions. While the vast majority of Californians could do all of their daily driving on electric, not all can. And there are plenty of "special case" trips (vacations, mountains) that can't either. Or the entire trucking industry. Or any business needing heavy duty pickup trucks.

What I want to see is a vast reduction in local pollution by slowly moving commuter cars over to electric as people replace them in the coming decades. I wish it could happen now so I don't have to choke on smelly exhaust (especially from all those gross polluter exceptions for old cars) when I'm enjoying the outdoors on a walk, run, or bike ride. But now, or 10 years, is not realistic. A few decades is, if properly pushed forward at a reasonable pace.

Absolutely Go Jerry Brown Do This NOW!!

[Crashmarik]

We have to preserve our air, and there is no reason whatsover the good people of SoCal should suffer the health risks associated with internal combustion engines, not to mention that gasoline is a hazardous substance and known carcinogen.

Get this legislation to the governor's desk and signed ASAP.

Re:CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should remember the past.

Prior to the Clean Air Act there were days you could not see LA City Hall when you were only two blocks away. Your eyes would burn and some people walked around with surgical masks. It wasn't only downtown, the smog was everywhere, from beaches to the hills. Studios would cancel filing on their back lots. When you see pictures of greyed out Chinese cities like Beijing, that is what Southern California used to be like.

You are an ignorant and selfish cunt.

I read the article before I submitted it..

[Rick Schumann]

To summarize a few points:
* This is just CARB 'talking' about this. It's not legislation, no one has introduced a bill. It's really just a 'what if' they're discussing.
* I hardly think they'd suddenly ban all IC engine vehicles. That would be a disaster, so don't even think about it.
* Furthermore it'd likely be a gradual shift away from IC engines to electric.
* Furthermore, I don't think things like motorcycles would be included in the ban, nor fleets of trucks, emergency vehicles, etc.
* Furthermore, I don't think it'd include existing vehicles, just new vehicles. Otherwise it would be an impossible financial burden on everyone. * Again: It's just above the level of coffee-table conversation the CARB is having about this. It would be at least TEN YEARS before they'd do anything.
* Furthermore, it'd likely have to be legislation. We all know how long that'd take, right?

Basically: No need to get all flustered about it -- YET. But it was worthy of being posted, so you all know what's going on. Also, not like you didn't all think something like this would come up eventually, anyway, we've been slowly moving towards this for a while now.

Re:If they ban existing vehicles I will sue

[ArmoredDragon]

It might be more practical to require all vehicles to be plug-in hybrids, that way more parking lots can build up more charging stations, while gas stations can be gradually phased out.

I'm not entirely sure I like the verbiage though...ALL internal combustion engines? Including hydrogen, whose only emission is water?...Unless they're being cognizant of the fact that water is a MUCH stronger greenhouse gas than CO2? Still doesn't make any sense. And what about large vehicles that rely on CNG, which has less carbon than any other fossil fuel?

Re:CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads.

[PopeRatzo]

There is no proposal. There have been zero details given yet. It's nothing but a news bite at this point.

There are proposals. The media here in California actually talks about them a lot. None of them involve anything but new cars.

Re:ha

[Obfuscant]

So don't buy a car then. There's a lot of people that don't own cars, and for those of us that live in large cities we shouldn't need to.

Is this an implicit claim that within 10 years the entire state of California will be one, huge, densely populated large city environment? That's what it would take to convert the huge amounts of California that aren't currently viable for public buses and trains into the kind of place where "bike" and "walk" are sufficient for everyone.

If the last 50 years has shown us, personal car ownership in any level of density urban area doesn't work.

And it has shown us that personal car ownership in any other environment is almost a requirement.

Face it, Governor Moonbeam has wangled himself a fuzzy feel-good regulation making him look good for cutting emissions by an impossible amount, and now he's got to try coming up with a solution that doesn't make him look like a complete environmentalist wacko suckup. Banning gasoline engines in the state is a "solution" that matches perfectly the "solution" of impossible cuts in emissions.

Re: If they ban existing vehicles I will sue

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm poor. Are you going to pay the cost to replace all my equipment that I bought with my own very hard earned money?? No, you'll just sit in your rich white ivory tower and declare this and that are banned and charge fines and penalties which go back to people like you from people like me.

Thanks.
--poor people

gurps_npc hates poor people.

[edgedmurasame]

All that does is make it so that the well-off can drive whatever they want and that you needlessly restrict what the Rest of Us drive.

If it can't cause pain for policymakers, then it's a non-starter.

Re:CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads.

[BlazeMiskulin]

Los Angeles is one the leading smog capitals of the world.

Umm... no.

http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/a...

Re:FIrst show me a full replacement car

[serviscope_minor]

For this to happen, the electric car must be roughly equivalent to the combustion engine powered car.

For the car to replace the horse, the car must be roughly equivalent.

It must be largely capable of steering itself and avoiding obstacles with only minimal input from the driver. It also must be powered by grass and be able to cross narrow trails and rough steep terrain. Finally, if you put two of the right type of cars together in a paddock, they need to be able to produce more cars for free.

I don't say that this wouldn't exist in 10 years, but until then, there is no practical replacement for at least 50% of trips.

By far the majority of trips are already within the range of even the weediest electric cars.

Re:If they ban existing vehicles I will sue

[Kiuas]

4) Enact some kind of incentives to move to electric motors for lawn equipment.

This is a good point, but why stop there? Norway has the highest amount of electric vehicles on the planet per capita even though they're a major oil producer because they pay no taxes on EVs, meaning no VAT and no additional vehicle taxes that normal cars are subject to. Additionally, electric vehicles are not subject to road tolls. AT the same time, gas costs 2 dollars a litre, meaning 7,5 dollars a gallon, and that's cheap for Norway, the last time I was there it was higher.

This isn't rocket science, the 2 primary factors affecting the adoption rate of electric vehicles are: the prices of the vehicles themselves, and the price of gas. Both can be heavily affected by taxes (and tax-breaks) I understand that in the current American context where you're used to having gas that's dirt cheap (don't get me wrong, the Norwegian prices are high as hell even for a European standard, but even here in Finland we pay around 6,10 $ a gallon, (E9510 which is 10 % ethanol) raising the tax on gas is probably a political no-go for several reasons, but even just giving significant tax-breaks on the electric vehicles will increase adoption rates significantly.

Secondly: start putting pressure on the oil companies themselves to create less polluting fuels that can be used to power conventional ICEs. You could set a goal of: by the year NNNN X % of all fuel produced most come from non-fossil sources. You currently produce around 140 million gallons of biodiesel a month (figures from june), with the yearly total capacity being around 2,3 billion gallons, which is less than 1 % of all the oil you currently consume. You can do a lot better, as can the rest of us..

The thing is, we (as in, the globe) don't have a lot of time to react if we wish to keep the warming below 2 degrees celsius, after which point it starts getting beyond our control due to feedback-effects from the glaciers melting as well as methane starting to be released from the permafrost, after which we're royally screwed. This means drastic actions are needed from everyone, so focusing on lawn mover engines is putting a bandaid a paper cut while the body is suffering from cancer that needs immediate treatment.

The good things is we can do this, we (the advanced economies) have both the money and the technological knowhow to ditch fossil fuels at a rapid pace, and we should, but for that to happen we need large players like the US, together with EU and China to start actually doing large scale systemic changes in the ways energy is both produced, used and taxed. Emission costs are currently heavily externalized, in that fossil fuels are waaaaaay cheaper than the should be considering the damage being done to everyone by their continued use, but as the effects only appear years after the stuff has been burned, they've managed to remain as cheap as they have. This needs to change in the relatively near-future, because the economy will naturally reroute to low-emission alternatives once fossils become economically inefficient. However we cannot wait for that to happen naturally (ie. waiting for the oil to start running out) because at that point it's likely going to be too late, so really, a carbon tax of some description, together with other sensible policies like those mentioned above by you, me and others, is the way to go.

You can't raise the price of gas (yet) with so many people dependent on it, but if you aggressively push for adoption of EVs not with bans, but with sensible market policies, once the price of an EV is below the price of an equivalent ICE vehicle you can start to increase gas price at which point it will only further increase

Re:FIrst show me a full replacement car

[serviscope_minor]

Perhaps,

No, not "perhaps".

http://www.statisticbrain.com/...

Statistically the majority of trips are well within the range of electric cars.

if you can charge them in between (within a 10 min timeframe) or at the end of the trips

Huh? No that has no effect. The average two way commute is much less than the average electric car journey. Charge it when you get home. Problem solved.

Also, the car had many advantages over the horse, while the electric car has almost none over a combustion engine one.

Apart from the massive lack of nasty emissions in precisely the places where people want to breathe and fuel economy?

Re: If they ban existing vehicles I will sue

[kenh]

I'm not entirely sure I like the verbiage though...ALL internal combustion engines?

You realize that includes leaf blowers and lawnmowers, right? And what about recreational and commercial boating - all currently rely on internal combustion engines...

Re: CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads.

[kenh]

You know a Southwest ticket costs about the same as all of the gas you'll need to buy and will bring you to your destination much faster, right?

Then you just walk from the airport to your hotel, and then walk to your business meetings because you have no need for a car once you get to your destination, right?

Re:FIrst show me a full replacement car

[thegarbz]

For this to happen, the electric car must be roughly equivalent to the combustion engine powered car.

No it doesn't. For this to happen the electric car must meet people's use cases. Very few people have a use case for being able to drive 600km twice with only a 10minute break in between. Those few that do find themselves in a head-on collision with a tree after falling asleep at the wheel.

An electric car with a 200km autonomy and 4 hours recharge is fine if you have a garage to store and charge it, most people just don't have that possibility.

No one in my street has a garage. There are however 6 owners of fully electric cars. Public infrastructure is a thing.

Combustion engines are so successful because you can charge them to 1000km autonomy in less than 5 minutes.

No. Combustion engines are successful because they were the best thing we had to replace the horse. At the time they neither filled in 5 minutes, nor made it to 1000km.

I don't say that this wouldn't exist in 10 years, but until then, there is no practical replacement for at least 50% of trips.

Currently electric cars can easily cover 95% of existing trips. You're just applying unrealistic requirements to your car simply because an alternative can do better. It's like saying that a 256GB SSD won't be suitable while 10TB HDDs are on the market. It's stupid to compare two different things and completely ignore the use case.

And you are not supposed to buy 2 cars, 1 electric for small commutes and 1 combustion for larger ones or where you won't have easy electricity to charge them.

Why would you buy anything for the odd occasion that you use it? I own a small little 4cyl 1.2L buzzbox. That doesn't stop me going camping on a sand island 3 times a year accessible only by SUV, and it sure as heck doesn't mean I need to buy that SUV to do this.

Re: CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads.

[Whibla]

Perhaps a âoegreater thanâ and âoeless thanâ pair would be filtered out by /. HTML parser?

Yeah, they are. You have to use &gt followed by a semicolon for > and &lt followed by a semicolon for <

God only knows what /. did to your post though (unless you meant to type repeated "a-circumflexes" that is)...